eurostar delays?

melancholly

just wondered if anyone has been on the eurostar recently and had any extra delays after the fire? we're going away for a weekend in Jan and don't want to book trains from St Pancras that we could end up missing. will 90 mins be sufficient? i know someone whose train was an hour late coming back, i guess some other reports would help know whether that was a one-off problem or if things really are just not running anything close to the timetable all the time!

melancholly

anyone used eurostar recently - anyone at all?! we'll go with a couple of hours i guess, just to be on the safe side...

TimothyEBaldwin

They are running to a temporary timetable, and they claim a 90% of the trains arrive within 15 minutes of the rescheduled time.

The temporary timetable contains large changes from that that was originality planned.

See http://www.eurostar.com/UK/uk/leisure/travel_information/before_you_go/temporary_timetable.jsp

However if they are late the delay can be substantially longer.

If you book a through ticket or, for the UK portion book a ticket to London International (only available in ticket offices on presentation of a London-continent train ticket, and possibly a lot cheaper) you a guaranteed travel on the next train and overnight accommodation if needed.

melancholly

thanks - i guess if only 10% are a later than 15 mins, the chances are that we'll make it then. i haven't collected the eurostar tickets yet so i may do that and then book the connecting one back away from london.... it's a shame you have to go to a ticket office for that but for guarenteed travel it may well be worth it!

our trains haven't changed on the revised timetable (i checked that after my friend was so delayed) so i'll keep my fingers crossed it all works ok!

northstar23

I'm a pretty regular Eurostar user from Ebbsfleet & Ashford... they usually run to the minute. In fact in all the times I've ever caught the train the only delay I've had was back in December when we had to make an emergency stop at Calais so a sick passenger could leave into a waiting ambulance, costing 30 mins.

TimothyEBaldwin

melancholly wrote: »

our trains haven't changed on the revised timetable (i checked that after my friend was so delayed) so i'll keep my fingers crossed it all works ok!

They will changed times, at least to the speed limit in the channel tunnel.

melancholly

TimothyEBaldwin wrote: »

They will changed times, at least to the speed limit in the channel tunnel.

right - having been completely confused I think I now understand. we booked after October so the timetable was already adjusted for both trains.

thefenman

Coming back from a day trip to Paris last July, the train I and my companion were travelling in took 5½ hours to get to Ebbsfleet due to problems with the preceding train! The Train Manager announced that we would be given a "refund" against our next booking.

I finally got round to following this up last week thinking that at worst the refund would be the single fare which, as it was a promotion, was only £14.50, at best a freebie to Paris from Ebbsfleet.

Imagine my delight when I received not one, but two vouchers for single trips on Eurostar without any restriction. As far as I can see they are good for any trip whatsoever.

Re current delays, the web site says that the tunnel now takes 20 minutes longer.